Written by

Clark Hinsdale

On our farm, we have a health care program for our cows, but not for our workers. Some of our workers buy health insurance and some don’t. We get our health insurance through our dairy cooperative.

We used to have more workers, but we replaced them with robots. Our robots have health insurance — it’s called a service contract. But our robots milk cows seven days a week, 24 hours a day. They don’t require worker’s comp, or days off.

Nobody on our farm is paid minimum wage. They have to be computer-literate to operate the computers that operate the robots. So with the robots we have fewer, smarter workers who are better paid.

I used to think about health insurance and health care reform a great deal before “ObamaCare” was passed. Now it feels like the health care system and health insurance programs are incomprehensible so I try not to think about either.

I don’t think health care is a “right.” But I believe providing people with reasonable access to health care is the right thing to do. I believe in personal responsibility and personal choice in obtaining health care and health insurance products for competent adults. But I believe that society has a responsibility to see that children and adults that cannot participate in the work force have basic health care as part of our safety net.

I am extremely concerned about the cost shifting that goes on within the health care system. Government programs, large insurers and “buyer’s clubs” cut favorable deals with medical providers, leaving the individual at a competitive disadvantage in purchasing health care. This cost shifting virtually forces an informed consumer to become part of a larger group to access affordable health care whether they want to or not.

I understand the attractiveness behind the concept of “single payer.” First, the single payer is always someone else. I would like someone else to pay for my health care too.

Second, it only seems reasonable that a centralized health care system would be more efficient than all of the bureaucracy involved in the plethora of programs and providers that we currently have. However, centralized governments around the world have demonstrated that such efficiency usually comes at a price that free people are unwilling to tolerate.

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Third, if government becomes the single payer, how are we to possibly believe that the lack of fiscal discipline and program reforms that threaten to bankrupt Social Security and Medicaid/Medicare will be avoided in this program? The “payer,” then will be future generations, cursing us for yet another benefit we voted ourselves while leaving them to pick up the tab.

Additionally, government oversight cannot replace millions of consumers seeing their bills and acknowledging that the service was provided. It is counterintuitive that eliminating that step in the process can reduce health care costs.

Vermont has taken some noble steps in increasing access to health care, including Doctor Dinosaur and the Catamount Health Plan. But it is hard for me to imagine our small state adopting a single payer system in a vacuum. It could well provide the business exodus to the rest of Vermont that the sales tax inflicted upon the Connecticut Valley.

So while Vermont has many good reasons to claim that we’re what the rest of America should be, let’s not try to get too far out in front on this one.

Clark Hinsdale, III is a dairy farmer in Charlotte and president of the Vermont Farm Bureau.